What we leave behind
by Gomboc123
Summary: Riza never knew young Nina Tucker. At least, not in the way normal people grow closer to one another through conversations and meetings and laughter. She doesn't know Nina. But she understands Nina- terrifyingly, intimately, and better than any other person ever could. After all, she was Nina Tucker all those years ago in her father's study, eager to help her dad with his research.


A/N: So excited to finally share my piece for the Women Made Fullmetal Zine now that they've shipped! If you didn't have a chance to order one, keep an eye out for the shop reopening in August to see this fic and more! Please enjoy and comment!

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She arrives at the grave after the funeral, when the mound of earth covering it is still fresh, and the flowers surrounding the marble headstone have had but a few hours to wilt. Her fingers tighten around the bouquet she brought before it joins the pile on the ground. It isn't the only group of white carnations, nor is it the largest, but Riza has never been good at funerals, despite how many she's attended in her life.

_Nina Tucker  
1910-1914  
In memory of a loving daughter and friend_

Riza never knew the girl, not really. She'd run into the bright-eyed toddler on the few occasions she or the Colonel did business with her father, but only gotten the opportunity to smile and give a quick 'hello' before leaving once again. It wouldn't have been right for her to attend the official service, standing silently in the back with nothing personal to offer to the rest of the bereaved crowd. She supposes that's why she's here now, illuminated by the last rays of light hitting the cemetery before the sun sets for good and the traumatic last chapter of what was Nina Tucker's life closes.

Her mouth is a grim line, not harsh, but fierce as she moves to the foot of the small plot. Nobody at the service earlier, walking around the new grave and packing the dirt around it into a sodden, muddy mess knew what had truly been the cause of Nina's unfortunate death. Newspapers chronicled the final demise of the Tucker family at the hands of a serial killer, but conveniently omitted any mention of the macabre experiments taking place at their home earlier that very night. Alchemy experiments performed by Nina's own father, whose bloody corpse lay in the family plot next to hers as if he had done his job as a husband and a parent correctly.

A feeling she can't place stirs in Riza's gut, but she does what she knows best and pushes it away. Shou Tucker isn't why she's here right now; his daughter is.

Riza has never had a real conversation with Nina Tucker. It makes her feel terrible to admit it, but if someone asked her for a fact so simple as Nina's eye color, she couldn't answer them. In fact, even the high timbre of Nina's voice is vague in her mind, faraway and unfamiliar. Riza never knew young Nina Tucker. At least, not in the way normal people grow closer to one another through conversations and meetings and laughter.

She doesn't know Nina. But she understands Nina- terrifyingly, intimately, and better than any other person ever could.

After all, she _was_ Nina Tucker all those years ago in her father's study, eager to help her dad with his alchemy research. She was Nina Tucker when she quelled the butterflies in her stomach upon seeing a formidable transmutation circle in the study and thinking there was no way her father would do anything to hurt her. And then she was Nina Tucker when she sat there and let her father mutilate her body for the sake of his work, ignoring her pleas and whimpers for just a moment of respite.

"_Do you want to help your father with his important research?"_ She can still hear his sickly rasp in her mind, clear as day, crisp as the red lines of the tattoo that snake along the ridges and valleys of her back.

Riza knows she could have tried to say no, could have resisted her father's frail arms and dying spirit with ease. She was a sheltered child for sure: hungry, pale, meek, and never given the opportunity to form bonds with others her age from living her father's life as a hermit. Still, she knew enough about what a typical father-daughter relationship was supposed to look like. She could have protested against Berthold. She could have negotiated. She could have refused to follow him blindly into his study, ignoring the way both the walls and her future closed in around them, narrowing to a single point. She _should_ have refused before that point manifested itself as a needle driving itself into her flesh over and over and over until her back burned.

But she didn't.

Some desperate part of her followed Berthold Hawkeye, thinking that if she associated herself with the one thing he truly cared about anymore, it would turn to two. But instead, the process engulfed her, and whatever regard Berthold gave little Riza was engulfed as well, leaving nothing but a whimpering human notepad in its wake.

"_Do you want to help your father with his important research?"_ Shou Tucker must have asked little Nina the same question. And Nina, more naive and less world-weary than adolescent Riza, who'd already lost the twinkle in her eye, accepted the challenge with the undying devotion to her father only a toddler could possess.

Little Nina, who didn't even know she had the option of protesting or negotiating or refusing to follow blindly, one hand in her father's and the other sunk in the thick, white fur of their family pet. Little Nina, who was so elated that Daddy was finally paying attention to her again, but lacked the experience to ask the world why.

Making sure to avoid the new mound of earth, Riza drops her knees to the ground, feeling dampness seep through the thick wool of her uniform. Her heart cries for the now deceased young girl, and the tears pool in her gut, churning and twisting and running into a river of guilt. Because she was Nina.

But Nina wasn't her.

Nina's story began the same as Riza's, but it ended so very differently. And it's unfair to the little girl, once so full of light, that she be the one to meet a dark, messy end. It's unfair that Riza, with her infinite wisdom and keen eyesight, had not even noticed a reenactment of her past happening under her nose. Red flags scream at her, hung high and waving wildly through those fleeting memories of the past. How had she missed them? How could she live with herself, knowing she missed them?

"I'm sorry."

Sorry can't bring Nina Tucker back to life, nor can it erase the year of isolation and the last few, excruciating hours of her life, but sorry is the best Riza can offer. Sorry and another bouquet of white carnations, already lost in the sea of ivory blossoms brought by those who know the language of flowers instead of plucking a bouquet off the grocery store shelf for obligation's sake.

"I'm so sorry."

Tears prick the corners of Riza's sharp eyes, threatening to cloud the vision she's so infamous for. But no tears run down her cheeks, because Riza knows that her tears are offensive, selfish ones, not entirely for the girl whose grave she kneels before. Rather, they're for herself- for a lost childhood, for the past that still haunts her whenever the rough tips of her blonde hair brush against the base of her neck. They're for her failure at protecting an innocent girl only she could've known to protect, for the knowledge that this very well could have been her all those years ago, packed in a pine box under five feet of dirt. For the realization that maybe, if Nina didn't deserve what happened to her, neither did she.

It's a strong thought, grabbing hold of her and shaking her hard enough to be dizzying, but Riza shakes back harder, and it dissipates. Refusing to give any indication that she'd even thought of crying, she blinks the beginnings of her tears away to whatever place she's been sending them for years. Riza Hawkeye doesn't cry over herself, especially not at another girl's funeral.

Tears don't have the power to scrub tattoo ink from her skin, nor do they have the power to resurrect Nina Tucker and make either of them whole again.

When her eyes are dry once more, Riza unclenches the fists she hadn't realized she was holding, watching as a row of perfect, red crescents appear on each palm from the pressure. She holds her eyes closed as she rises, focusing her energy on brushing what she can from her darkened knees. Neither Nina nor the world need her tears or her apologies. They need a promise.

Orange light from a quickly setting sun bathes Nina's grave in warmth, washing the white flowers at its base a soft amber. Before long, the sun is overtaken by the pine tree-speckled horizon and amber turns gray.

No more Nina Tuckers.

She turns on her heel with military precision and makes her way from the darkening cemetery to her car. Apologies are meaningless if one does nothing to prevent the same tragic event from happening twice.

No more Riza Hawkeyes.

She inserts her key in the ignition and pulls from the cemetery's gravel lot to the main road, allowing the sun to set on the scene behind her, driving toward a new day.


End file.
